Conventional cameras are generally unsuitable for close-up photographing. Even cameras acclaimed as being cameras for close up photographing cannot be brought to the photographic object any closer than about 50 cm. This may be attributed to various reasons. One of the reasons will be found in the difficulty in setting various photographic conditions such as lighting proper for close-up photographing. Also, the depth of field gets so small as the camera gets closer to the object that it is difficult to obtain a picture having a depth.
Therefore, to the knowledge of the inventor, there has not been any serious attempt to adapt a compact camera to close-up photographing by allowing the lens to be moved by a significant distance. The inventor of this application proposed a camera which is suited for close-up photographing in a real sense in a copending patent application Ser. No. 08/967,462. The contents of this copending application are hereby incorporated in this application by reference.
The introduction of this camera which allows a close-up picture to be taken very easily has resulted in a realization that there is a strong demand for photographing objects at high magnification factors, and, hence, cameras which are suited for taking pictures of objects at extremely close ranges even more easily and clearly.